An interview with Marie-José Mondzain: what is an image?

ABSTRACT

Marie-Jose Mondzain is one of the major philosophers writing about image, iconography, and representation today. In this interview, she discusses a few of the central ideas in her approach to and thinking about the nature of image and image-making as they bear upon the emergence of subjectivity and visibility in general. According to Mondzain, images are not visual objects we may or may not see; rather they are the site where the visible and its invisibility crisscross each other in opening the field of presence. Images, as Mondzain says in the interview, are cracks or leaks in being. They are where lights first come in and where man and beings are born to each other in their being-in-the world, that is, in their truth. Moving beyond historical and theoretical reflections, Mondzain turns to discuss things and scenes of mass media of late, addressing issues of pleasure, anxiety, desire, and the like, wherein ideologies, power, and the lure of images can be seen to intersect with our everyday life that has become irrevocably one of passive mobility. To the point at every turn, her answers to questions in this interview provide a glimpse to her forceful thinking and insights.     

Program reevaluation: The gifted controversy

Gifted reevaluations consume an enormous amount of professional time and energy. The purpose of the present study was to survey gifted education teachers' and supervisors' perceptions of current gifted reevaluation practices. Results showed most gifted educators were not in agreement with the practice of using gifted reevaluations to reestablish program eligibility. Instead, they would prefer to get information relevant to program evaluation, program planning, and the need for additional services. Included among the alternatives suggested to replace the present gifted reevaluation practices were consideration of student work products, motivation, and interest; reports by parents and by regular and gifted education teachers; and monitoring the student progress made in achieving the goals of the individual educational program.     

Further investigation of the correlations among the WISC-R,PIAT, and DAM

The authors replicated a study (White, 1979) in which high correlations were obtained among the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT), and the Goodenough-Harris Draw-A-Man (DAM), and conclusions were drawn that all these instruments might not be necessary in the same test battery. The present study involved a larger sample (360 children). Much lower correlations among the instruments were obtained, although the pattern of correlation was similar. It was concluded that results of the White study may have overestimated the relationships between the variables because of factors unique to the sample. Test specificity appeared using the larger, normally distributed sample, suggesting a legitimate use of all three tests in a single battery.     

No public value without a valued public

This study aims to enlighten the controversial discussion about the term public value in an innovative way. Instead of normative pronouncements and paternalistic posits, this study combines a theoretical, literature-based conception with an empirical quantitative approach. For this, the key term, public value, is split into its constituent parts of customer value and citizen value and is transformed into measurable attributes. By means of a choice-based conjoint analysis on panel data for Germany and the United Kingdom, we explore which performance attributes of public service broadcasters are the most important. Based on the results, we create a conception of public value from the perspective of the license fee payers as the main stakeholder of public service broadcasters. Our findings may unlock existing potential to increase our understanding of what is meant by the term public value.     

Guiding Low Spatial Ability Individuals through Visual Cueing: The Dual Importance of Where and When to Look

Research suggests that spatial ability may predict success in complex disciplines including anatomy, where mastery requires a firm understanding of the intricate relationships occurring along the course of veins, arteries, and nerves, as they traverse through and around bones, muscles, and organs. Debate exists on the malleability of spatial ability, and some suggest that spatial ability can be enhanced through training. It is hypothesized that spatial ability can be trained in low-performing individuals through visual guidance. To address this, training was completed through a visual guidance protocol. This protocol was based on eye-movement patterns of high-performing individuals, collected via eye-tracking as they completed an Electronic Mental Rotations Test (EMRT). The effects of guidance were evaluated using 33 individuals with low mental rotation ability, in a counterbalanced crossover design. Individuals were placed in one of two treatment groups (late or early guidance) and completed both a guided, and an unguided EMRT. A third group (no guidance/control) completed two unguided EMRTs. All groups demonstrated an increase in EMRT scores on their second test (P < 0.001); however, an interaction was observed between treatment and test iteration (P = 0.024). The effect of guidance on scores was contingent on when the guidance was applied. When guidance was applied early, scores were significantly greater than expected (P = 0.028). These findings suggest that by guiding individuals with low mental rotation ability “where” to look early in training, better search approaches may be adopted, yielding improvements in spatial reasoning scores. It is proposed that visual guidance may be applied in spatial fields, such as STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine), surgery, and anatomy to improve student's interpretation of visual content. Anat Sci Educ. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.